


in you i see the stars

by orphan_account



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet, Closure, I just want them to have a nice epilogue y'know, Immortal/codebearer Lelouch, Love/Hate, Post-Canon, Resolution, Set post-Re;surrection, Significant Timeskip, Tragedy, very very very background CC/Lelouch if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24906265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In a changed world, Lelouch relinquishes Suzaku from the chains of the past.
Relationships: Kururugi Suzaku & Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia, Nunnally vi Britannia & Kururugi Suzaku, Nunnally vi Britannia & Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia
Kudos: 17





	in you i see the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Set over 70 years following the events of the Zero Requiem. Follows Re;surrection canon.

No matter how many decades passed, Nunnally vi Britannia remained a woman of compassion and grace.

Perhaps it was because the philosophy she had adopted as a young girl was one many only realised as death approached, and for that reason, she had learnt the art of living peacefully from early on in life. From the age of five, she lived without the use of her legs and without her sight, and so she understood what it meant to be gracious for what remained. When at the age of eighty, cataracts crippled her by-then restored vision, Nunnally did not despair—rather, with calmness, she embraced the marks of her age. She had already spent a decade of her life living without vision, and after the following seventy spent bathed in light and vivid colour, the inevitable fade to black was one she didn’t protest.

And when the end came, Nunnally neither feared or rushed to succumb. Instead, slowly, and with the tenderness she had always emanated, she let herself gradually fall away, Suzaku’s hand enclasped within her own. In those final breaths, she bid a bright life farewell, and thanked the sorrow she had experienced for giving her the strength to persevere.

Her funeral was held on a bright spring day.

As per her will’s request, everyone wore yellow, not black, for it was the colour of sunshine, daffodils and warm summer sand, alongside everything else that sparked joy in the world—a precious resource that, even in the new era of peace her brother’s death had ushered in, Nunnally never believed there was enough of. The venue was awash with flowers, with luscious bouquets of pink hyacinths and white jasmine, her favourites, blooming in every nook and cranny of the cathedral. The gentle strings of a harp cradled every attendee into tranquility, doing away with their grief and channeling it into a soft, placid peace.

For all its abounding light and purity, Lelouch felt wrong to step foot in such a place.

Even seventy years later, he felt wrong to torture his sister with his presence.

In every aspect, it was wrong.

He should have died decades before her, and gone to hell where he deserved to be—at least, where himself and every Britannian and Japanese alike _felt_ he deserved to be, for it was the only place where he could atone for all the blood shed by his unholy hand.

But he was not. Instead, he stood here, lurking in the shadows, a treacherous fragment of the past wrongfully clinging to the present. Even now, he could not show his face, and whether out of his shame or for the sake of maintaining anonymity, he couldn’t let himself stray any closer to where his sister lay.

He swallowed.

Lelouch had been determined to ensure his meeting with her in Zilkhistan would be the last, but even now, he had not the resolve to fulfill it. More painfully than anything else, were she alive, his poor sister would have welcomed him back, likely as though he had never left her.

Perhaps this was one of the only things that had ever left a lasting impact on him—his immortality had already begun to jade him, and even though he knew her death would be inevitable, it made seeing it no less painful. Living it. Breathing it. All the flowers and harp players in the world could not surmount to the light Nunnally had been in his life, and here he was, intruding on the celebration of her life like a filthy sinner.

But then a hand grasped his shoulder, and Lelouch’s head whipped in its direction.

The sight that met him was of faded green eyes, alongside a smile that once burned equally with love and hate, but had mellowed over the long years since. Though his body had become bowed and weathered with old age, and his hair tousled by wisps of grey, there was no doubt in Lelouch’s mind as to who it was. 

For the first time since the Zilkhistan operation, Kururugi Suzaku stood before him.

“I still haven’t forgiven you,” said Suzaku, breaking the silence. His smile momentarily faltered as he spoke, fragments of a still-aching heart embedded in his words. “For Euphie. Nor for the geass you cast on me,” he continued, “nor for the fact that you never even died after all. Even now, it haunts me.” But he paused, taking a breath, and a small smile flickered back into being. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“Suzaku,” breathed Lelouch.

“You’re here to apologise?” suggested Suzaku. “To atone for every misdeed of yours that ever caused Nunnally pain?” He scoffed, but with less contempt than he would in his youth, and more bittersweet amusement. “There’s too many of those to account for. You should try reflecting on the good, instead.”

Lelouch fell silent, and he almost settled on a frown, but there was a sincerity to his ex-best-friend’s words that made him reconsider. “Yeah,” he said finally, without an ounce of his usual egotism. It was genuine, and freeing.

“And don’t think about apologising to me, either,” said Suzaku firmly, with the same air of conviction held by the young soldier he once was. “I’ve heard too many of those, and I’m in no shape nowadays to crush your head into the pebbles like back at the Kururugi Shrine—that was, how many years ago?”

“Seventy-two,” answers Lelouch, finally turning to face him properly. “And I trust that this time, you won’t be selling me out to the Britannians, either?”

“Luckily for you, you bastard,” said Suzaku, wrinkled face crinkling with mirth.

Before long, two of them had ventured away from the bright, ceremonious cathedral and into the surrounding gardens. They settled on a creaking old bench beneath the wisteria trellises, a shadowed space where Lelouch’s face could not be clearly seen, and the words they shared could not be heard. Once they were seated, and a beat of silence had passed, Suzaku continued.

“They no longer have use for an old relic like me,” he bemoaned, clearing his throat. His chest rattled with uncharacteristic fragility as he did. ”I haven’t worn the Zero mask in fifty years, and even then, it was only for a memorial parade.”

“Commemorating the treacherous 99th Emperor's demise, swiftly delivered by Zero, hero and liberator of Japan,” jested Lelouch. It was a carbon-copy of the script broadcasted across the island nation every anniversary of the event.

“God,” said Suzaku. “If the people ever got their hands on the truth, the outcry would rock the entire nation.”

“And so they never shall,” Lelouch asserted, eternally self-assured. “Imagine! The idea of Zero as the demon Lelouch and his jockey is too outlandish to even imagine. Maybe some hidden genius will make an opera about it in 20 years, and it’ll get brushed off as deviant fiction, but other than that, I doubt the people will ever come close to any realisation. The peace has dulled their intellect, after all.”

“You’re as cocky as ever,” spit Suzaku. “What does C.C. feed you, ego supplements?”

“Hah,” scoffed Lelouch. “You know, I didn’t think I’d ever say it, but the witch isn’t half bad. Say, did you ever find love, Suzaku?”

“No. Nunnally was as close as it ever came.”

With his words, a quiet, solemn silence settled into the atmosphere, one Lelouch ended almost as quickly as it began.

“Suzaku,” he began, decidedly firm. Green eyes flickered to observe him. “You know that my Geass no longer binds you to the pain of living. Not since the Zero Requiem—and yet…”

“It’s funny,” laughed Suzaku; mirthless, reflective. “In the end, I found something I wanted to live for. Not artificially, by means of Geass, and not something I could atone for my life with. No—something real. The desire to protect the future that your sacrifice made, Lelouch, and the one Nunnally dedicated her life to maintaining.” He fell silent. “But now she’s gone, and justice is an archaic ideal for a world already built upon it.”

A hesitated breath, and then a confession followed: 

“I never thought I’d say it, but maybe you’re right, Lelouch.”

“Suzaku,” said Lelouch, with a tenderness only ever before reserved for his sister.

“What, happy that you won?”

Lelouch bit his lip. “I’ll miss you.”

“Any more than when you left us for seventy years?” Suzaku laughed bitterly, but remnants of past fondness shone in his eyes. In return, Lelouch could respond with nothing more than a small, sad smile.

Those were the last words the two would ever exchange, before Lelouch and his lithe form disappeared into the distance, obscured by the drift of lilac petals. And when two days later, Suzaku had finally gained both the strength and closure to let go, Lelouch would stand in the shadows of the funeral procession once more. There he would watch, and say to what was perhaps his only ever true friend, ‘ _goodbye_ ’.

Perhaps the next time he would see him would be in the stars, just as how within him, they shone.


End file.
